


Event Horizon

by dagonst



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 13:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagonst/pseuds/dagonst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tardis is breaking, except only sometimes.  The Master is back, except not entirely.  The Doctor is coping, except that he isn't.  Set after the Wedding of River Song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bad Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> A wise man once said that self-indulgence is better than no indulgence at all. Hurt/comfort, End of Time fix-it.

Bad Wolf Bay. The Doctor still hasn’t forgotten why he doesn’t want to be here, can't imagine why the Tardis would choose it. It’s no kind of anniversary, no soft time where he might see the next universe over - nothing here but a misery that he’s long done with. So he pulls the lever to leave again, and gets a shower of sparks and no momentum. “Come on, love,” he says, and yanks down again, and something cracks down below. The Doctor scowls and takes the stairs three at a time, down to patch things back together.

The Doctor starts yanking components and muttering. She's burning out parts that should have lasted another lifetime, and how _touchy_ she seems. And then she starts smoking, which only proves his point. It's another two, three minutes before he lets himself be forced out into the cold, rubbing at his streaming eyes, holding the door open to vent the place.

It's not as though there's anything to be afraid of here. Rocks. Wind. Ocean. He is fine, and the Tardis is only stubborn, and there is nothing wrong with his universe, he won’t allow it. 

The wind carries traces of burnt plastics, burnt flesh. He scrubs at his eyes again, squints. Almost nothing there: a blur of a figure standing still at the water's edge.

First thing, which he already knew, it’s not her, never her. Second thing, it's him, and could never have been anyone else. And the Doctor's been standing here with the door open. He closes it, locks up. 

But the Master's had plenty of time to make his move by now. Any move. But he hasn’t, doesn't. The only thing changing is the tide coming in. And that's...not good. No, wrong - it's not _good_ that the Master's back at all. It is not good that the Master is on Earth. And it's especially not good that neither of those things worry him as much as the Master's just standing there.

The Doctor circles around, a wide berth, past his ankles in freezing water to leave what feels like enough space to neither startle or threaten. Except that the Master’s not looking at him. He’s not _not_ looking either. His arms stay slack at his sides, the waves eating away at the sand under his boots.

The Doctor stops in front of him, takes inventory. Same clothes, or near enough. His hair’s grown in darker, and he’s shaved recently. The wind finally rips the hood down, and he pulls it back, resting a hand at the Master’s jaw. Nothing. 

Very nearly nothing. (A stronger sense of burning everything, and the horizon beyond the waves, and two men standing at the edge of the water, not shivering.) The Doctor closes his eyes, thinks how much less stupid he’d feel if the Master sneered at him, laughed. Anything. 

Then he steps back, and shoves him. The Master stumbles back two steps before regaining his balance. His face never changes. “Where are you? Stop playing, stop this -” He’s shouting, and of course it doesn’t make any difference. “You can’t do this.” He shoves him again and the Master trips, fails to break his fall onto the rocks. Lies sprawled and awkward, eyes glazed. The regenerated Master had been bleeding energy, burning alive. Not anymore. He'd tried to escape Gallifrey, of course. And this was all that got through, a cooling cinder. 

"But then, losing bodies never stopped you before." The Doctor kneels to scan for further, pointless damage. And then an arm swings up. The stone connects with his head, the Doctor yells, and the Master scrambles up fast enough to land two good kicks - ribs and stomach - before running. 

He's lost the fantastic strength he'd had just after his resurrection. When the Doctor catches him and grabs his arm, he spins, crashes to his knees, gasping for breath. “What the, what on - just - “ Just stop, an older voice says, but he doesn’t want the Master to stop. “Master,” he says, pulling him to his feet. “Saxon. Koschei. _Master_.” The Master starts to look up, winces. Tries to step away. Responding to sound, to pain, that's all. Probably. 

He turns away, tugging at the Master’s arm. “Let’s go, Master. I don’t want to be here. And you shouldn’t be here. I don’t know how you managed it, that time-lock leaks like a sieve. The universe is going to throw another fit, isn’t it. We’d best be back in the Tardis, come on. I bet nothing’s even broken, she’s got redundant systems.” He keeps talking, and pulling, and shoving, until he’s got the Master safe inside.

In the kitchen, he tries to chivvy the Master into a chair; the Master knocks his hands away and backs into the wall. Slides down it. The Doctor makes tea. He pours half a cup into the best china he can find in the mismatched collection. (Earth, France, 18th century.) Presses it into his hands. “Here you are, Master.” 

He doesn’t drink it, but he doesn't smash it to the floor either.

* * *

He’s down in the lower level again. The Doctor sits on the stairs and watches him trail fingers over the central panel, the outer walls, apparently aimless. This is the Doctor’s cue to shout and pull him away from the essential, dangerous, irreplaceable equipment. But yesterday, the Master turned on him with a bit of loose pipe; his shoulder’s gone stiff. The Tardis hasn't been much more cooperative, but at least she got them off Earth before overheating. 

He can guess how the Master is fitting things together, and kindness doesn’t enter into it. If it ever did, for him. He tracks the Doctor now, tenses when he comes close or speaks. (Prods, shoves, shouts.) Maybe it’s better if the universe seems to be consistent for the next little while, but it isn’t what the Doctor wants.

Something new, then. He pulls out the sonic screwdriver and taps it against the rail: one-two-three _four_. 

The Master whirls, sheet-white and stricken. Seeing King Hamlet’s ghost, it looks like. Still not seeing him, though, the Doctor thinks, not quite fixing on anything. He repeats the sequence, curious. The Master takes a halting step forward, grimacing. “You never do learn,” the Doctor says, watching his face as he edges closer. There’s finally something there, almost too much. Relief, agony, terror. “What do you think they’d make you do now?” Nearly within reach; the Doctor stops, mid-beat: one two three -

The Master lurches, as soon as the noise stops. Casting about for direction. The rising panic is nearly as physical as the flailing - with every sense, hearing, sight, psi - 

“Master,” the Doctor says, standing. He shakes him, catches his eyes and - void, total absence, and thinks for a second his body’s been hijacked but - it’s right there. It’s just the Master, no longer seeing everything indiscriminately. Focused, and discarding everything that isn’t the drums. 

And the drums aren’t there, not in the entire universe.

“You have to stop that,” he tells the Master. “You really do have to stop. Sit down, here, stop sulking.” The Doctor pulls him down without a fight, to lean against the stair rail. The sense of vacancy is stronger, if anything.

And if the Doctor can feel it, just sitting with him, what else can? It’s an open invitation to the worst kind of trouble. “Stop it, Master, you’re going to get lost. Or eaten. The drums are gone, Gallifrey’s gone, it’s only us, can’t you see that. I suppose you can't. Unless you’re having me on, you wouldn’t, not this, but nevermind, _stop_ it.”

The Master has stopped breathing, which isn’t at all what he meant. Not an immediate problem, but - it’s not something one does for a lark. Stethoscope to his chest, another unnoticed invasion of personal space, to reach the point where two arteries cross and they both come through equally strong. The perfect double heartsbeat of Gallifreyan story and song, he’s fine for the moment.

“Oh, I’m an idiot.” Headphones and a playlist of Greatest Hits of the Year That Never Was might do as well, and the Master’s far less likely to laugh at him for sentimentality. But he’s the one of them who makes people better, and this is his idea. He finds the spot on his own chest, unhooks the earpieces and fits them into the Master’s ears. 

The Master’s hand twitches, and he moves it - another impulse - to his neck, a pulse point used to check the strength of the hearts individually. The Master finds the second on his own, sliding a hand under his jacket, pressing through his shirt. 

He draws in the breath to scream, and the Doctor catches him, rocks him - it brings back the Valiant, clinging to a corpse and begging. Vivid as though he’d been there himself. The Master, still voiceless and screaming just the same, rigid in his hold. “Don’t die,” he whispers. “Not again.”

There’s a still space, when neither of them do more than breathe, probably only seconds, before the Master tears away, shoves him off and up the stairs. Whirls around at the top to stare at the Doctor a split second (for a half-second it’s a different staircase and a tailored suit), and then races for the corridors.

The Doctor finds him asleep, later, curled up. The back of the wardrobe, all but covered in a pile of discarded coats, face buried in one the Doctor used to wear. That means nothing. The Master is not fit to boil tea, let alone indulge in nostalgia. And he’s certainly not communicating some preference in Doctors. He probably would prefer a different one. The last Doctor indulged him ludicrously, set him above everything and everyone. And even that wasn’t enough. 

The Doctor drapes his last jacket over him, and lets him alone.

And he is alone, mostly; the Master is less a companion than a standoffish shadow. He leaves out extra tea when he makes it, and that goes over well. Relative to food, which the Master never touches. The Doctor thinks paranoia first, then metabolism, and finally realizes the Master’s found that cache of food bars he’d acquired in a bleak period. A century’s supply of high-nutrient shoe leather. 

He’s blocked from the Doctor's room, of course, and the Ponds’, and the engines. He’ll turn up near the controls. Sometimes the kitchen, through the far entrance. He seems to spend a bit of time in the wardrobe, but never changes from what he’d come in with, the faded hoodie and jeans that aren’t actually Earth manufacture.

The Doctor dreams of the war, of the Toclafane. Burning islands and wastelands. Probably he still deserves to.


	2. Coming and Going

He leaves, then; he needs air, something new. A caravanserai, spreading out from a cluster of permanent shelters in the middle of a hundred miles of sand dunes. He pulls the Master out into it, a maze of tents and spices and then, when the Master’s turned around enough that he’s stopped looking back towards the Tardis, the Doctor gives him the slip. 

Because he's the Doctor, but he can't fix everything. And perhaps he should have left the Master somewhere less loud, or more stable, but at the same time, isn’t it for the best? The Master will find a way out, he always does. (It will end badly, it always does.) 

The Doctor lingers a while longer. He buys a pink iced...something, and looks at the jewelry and lets himself miss Donna a little. He tries to get himself lost, but that never works unless he’s drunk. So he starts on getting drunk. The warning siren goes off, as he half-knew it would. Windstorms in the equatorial belt. With the sand, it'd be death by flaying to walk around. So the entire marketplace crowds into these bunkers, and then in the morning they'll sweep the tables off and get back to business.

The Master gets swept in with the rest of them. The Doctor sinks down in his booth, hopelessly, and wishes the Master could manage to look accusing. “Oh, sit down, you’re behind.”

Half an hour after the storm clears, the Doctor wanders out past the tentpoles, lies back to look at the sky. The Master sits less gracefully than he managed, and a bit out of reach.

“Beautiful, isn’t it, now the storm’s down. Don’t know if you notice. You used to like pretty things. Well, valuable things, more.” He lets himself ramble; the Master isn’t likely to find a rock to hit him with out here. He leaves the Master there, sleeping. It’s a peaceful world, more or less. Not a bad place. He gets all the way back to the TARDIS before realizing the Master’s lifted his key.

The Doctor bangs on the door, just waiting for her to dematerialize. Again. But of course the Master’s still out here in the sand. So that’s alright, he only has to wait.

The Dalek’s shot hits him full in the back.

* * *

The Doctor focuses, and he’s flat on the floor, his fingers tingle and the Master says, “-take. Hold still and shut up.” 

“You’re - ow!” and he arches up, his head falls to the side and sees the Master leaning against the flight controls. Looking down at him from under his hood, the Doctor's screwdriver loose in his hand. He turns back to face the other Master, in shirtsleeves, face pinched. "You're Minister Saxon."

“You're the Doctor. And you're parked in my sitting room.” 

"It was an accident." He doesn't remember. He remembers falling, not getting back up and escaping. He wouldn't have run from Daleks, if he could have done anything else. He certainly wouldn't have come to - he's not sure what to call him. 

He _was_ the Master, of course. But now there's a new one, and there can't be two at once. It's not just the paradox, it's rules of succession, or something like that. 

"Yes, it was." The Minister - 'Minister' will have to do - settles his hand on the Doctor's shoulder. The Doctor realizes his shirt's gone, and lifts his head to check the rest. The Minister's fingers dig in. “No running away, Doctor. So I hope you have a good explanation.” 

“It’s your future. You know I can’t.” Nerve damage, he realizes. Or shock. He can feel the fabric of his trousers, but only a dull, faraway pressure in his legs. No running. 

“You will, or it’s the end of the future. _What have you done to me?_ ” 

"Nothing. You turned up, like you always do." 

“I’m lobotomized, but it's not your fault. No, wait - you’re making it _better_.” The Minister laughs.

“I'm not - I _said_ nothing. I don't know how.” He tries to twist out of the increasingly painful grasp, and looks away from one Master only to meet the eyes of the other. "I'm sorry," he tells them. He's also found his shirt, or maybe jacket, bundled under his head. 

“What a rubbish future." The Minister lets go and stands. Fingers tapping.

“You can’t change what’s happened, Master,” he says, sitting up. His shoulder throbs, and his legs are starting in.

"Time Lord," the Minister sing-songs. "With a paradox machine. A _working_ paradox machine. Who's to say you ever exist?" He steps over the Doctor and says, "out of my way." 

For a second, the Doctor thinks the Minister was talking to him, joking, and then the Master raises his sonic screwdriver. The Minister grabs him by the collar - throat? and it clatters to the floor, almost before the Doctor realizes they aren't working together. From the look on the Minister's face, he hadn't realized it either. The Master goes slack, dead weight.

"He didn't recognize you," the Doctor says, considering a try for the screwdriver. 

"Then what are you doing in my home?" The Minister pulls his future self off the console, shoves him in the Doctor's direction, knocking him flat. "Did I kill you?"

The Doctor hasn't had a proper conversation in a while. Unfortunate side effect of faking his own death. And then, he doesn't remember having many proper conversations with this version of the Master, either. Perhaps neither of them are doing very well. "I'll be alright in an hour or two." He rolls the Master onto his back. Alive - the Master wouldn't have killed himself - but in no state to interfere. 

"You've regenerated, Doctor. I want you to tell me how you died." He looks down, idly kicks the sonic screwdriver towards the far side of the room. 

"Radiation," the Doctor says. "From one of your projects." Perhaps if he can keep the Minister's attention on him until the other one recovers. The one who might be on his side. 

"Could be almost anything. Give me something useful, Doctor. When will you get back from the end of the universe? What happened to Gallifrey?"

"Spoilers." 

"Paradox machine." The Minister runs over the controls with his screwdriver, locking them up. "Which I need to turn off for the night. Good talk. Enjoy your trip. Bye!"

He pulls the lever down, and races for the door as the Tardis starts to dematerialize. She slips out of phase as the Minister tries to slam the door behind him.

The Doctor struggles to get up, and to the console. Something goes bang in the lower level, and then the Tardis goes dark and still. And then his legs switch on. He does not scream. He checks the Master's breathing, pulse. Shocky. He finds his coat, puts it under the Master's head. The door's still ajar, swinging open on a perfectly normal starfield. The Doctor watches the stars, until he can sleep.


	3. Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not her fault, not at all.

It’s not her fault, not at all. The Tardis takes energy where she can, and if you just start poking around inside -- And anyway, TARDIS mechanics always had a relatively high fatality rate.

The Doctor wakes up in the dark control room. He checks his legs first (twingey), then their last destination (middle of a black hole, thank you Minister Saxon), and then the Master (gone), sonic screwdriver (also gone). 

What registers first, when he finds them, is the Master’s even skinnier without the sweatshirt. The Master has three perfectly-round wounds on his arms, his skin’s acquired a grey corpsish tone, and he’s gotten blood everywhere - his hands, the screwdriver, all the wiring in the panel he's opened, smeared across his face. “No,” the Doctor says uselessly. “No, no, no.” The Master reaches for something inside, above the opening, clicks it into place, then yanks his arm back to dislodge the cable that’s stabbed him again. As though it were a persistent mosquito, not a conduit draining away whatever lives he had left. Fresh blood dripping down on both of them as he reaches up and the Doctor shoves his way in around him.

“If there’s another way, speak up,” he says, reaching around the Master to find the other end of the power cabling. The Master slumps against him, not bothering to support his own weight now he doesn’t have to. He stabs the Master’s free arm to complete the circuit, force the energy through him. Because some of it is going to stick, and Tardis circuitry is mostly engineered to survivable limits. He gets enough to make his hair stand on end. The Master throws his head back in what ought to be a scream but isn't, back arching.

And when he’s done electrocuting the Master, he bundles him up, gets him well away from the bloody mess he’s made. Finds that one bathroom with the wrought iron tub and drops the Master into it and throws the damned hoodie in his lap. “Why did you even take that off, it would have slowed it down. If you think you’re infecting my Tardis again, you’re wrong. I won’t have it.”

The Master tries to lean forward, falls against the tub’s sloped back. Presses his hands out against the sides, away from him. Energy fluctuating wildly, just under the threshold of visibility, and oh, that must itch terribly. 

“Think you’re clever, I suppose,” he says, and turns the cold water tap.

 

* * *

_Once, he'd clawed his way out of the event horizon of a black hole. It took lifetimes, and when he got out, he did the only sensible thing: forgot everything about the experience, everything except that he'd done it._

_Once, there was a war. And he lost that and then everything else, until he cheated._

_Once this is over, there are a lot of things he’s going to forget. The drums. Gallifrey. Gone and useless. He’s fought himself over the Doctor, and became what he died to stop, and that has to go. Once, there was a Doctor he'd kept close. He'd like to think none of the others mattered._

_Judging by all the grafts and missing rooms, he’s the last person in the universe who can repair a Tardis; he’ll remember that. The Doctor wraps his arms too tight, his fingers turn blue. Not that he’ll say anything._

_It’s noisy enough already. Worse than the drums, and not inside his head. Even in sleep, he can’t hide - it seeps through into his dreams and the centuries’ worth of jumbled thoughts. He’s going to have to kill every living being in the universe to get a moment of silence._

_He’s stretched too thin to even start. The resurrection, the void, the Tardis. Gallifrey. But he is the Master, so he’ll do it._

* * *

It's the Master's own fault. The Tardis had the opportunity, and the motive, and the means - but she wouldn't. 

The Doctor had hoped that the Master was getting better. He had been smug enough about his rewiring project, which, yes, alright, had worked. The Tardis had taken a lot out of him in the process, he'd spent most of the next day asleep. And most of the next week. It's likely he's failing to integrate whatever information the Ministry-era Master had hit him with. And if that's it, all he needs is a proper rest and a chance to sort things out. 

The Doctor can barely remember how long it's been since he had a zero room. But he's seen something like it, and not that long ago.

Some synchronicity of museum archivists made this exhibit look just like the last display of the Pandorica. The geography, not the Daleks and penguins. The same walkway, same dramatic position, out here at the far edge of where human artifacts wind up. It's fantastic, and it's intact. It’s not the sort of thing that could stop working.

The Master stops half-way into the room. But only for a moment. Then he circles the thing. Stops beside it, on the far side. Stares at the Doctor as though the prison-cube is not the item of interest in the room. He goes in without a fight.

The Doctor decides to give him a week. Leaves him slumped in the chair with protein bars, a book, a watch with the countdown to exactly when he’s going to come back. And the Doctor’s sworn off the Tardis - land travel only, won’t leave the area, pop in every day. He can't risk being late. But he’s not Rory, he’s not going to sleep with the thing.

The invasion was entirely not his fault.

He gets back just after closing time, twenty-five hours late, and talks his way past the cordon to the smoking ruins of the museum. 

The Pandorica is intact, three stories below where it should be. Opens like a dream. Empty.

So at least he knows who blew up the museum. Well, unless the Master’s been kidnapped again, but they didn’t seem the least interested in humanoids. 

* * *

He has the day's arrivals and departures memorized, hours before the Doctor turns up. And then has to wait even longer while the Doctor creeps around by the walls, buys tea, wastes time, and imagines he's being subtle. He could almost have run for office again.

"Master," he prompts, finally making an approach, and the Master nods in response. "You broke out of the Pandorica and blew up a museum. Say _something_." 

“Something,” the Master repeats, and takes his cup from the Doctor. He doesn't sound like someone who hasn't said a word in weeks, he made certain of that. 

The Doctor snorts. "How'd you get out, then?"

"Of the Pandorica? Same way you did."

"Three accomplices and a Time Agency watch."

The Doctor is, probably, not joking. Which is cheering, even if it does mean he should have tried harder to kill Captain Harkness. "Through the back door."

"There is no - look, will you come?" The Doctor and his imperfect grasp of small talk. "If destroying the museum wasn’t meant to tell me something.”

"Oh, yes. Applied chemistry for, don't even think of doing that again, Doctor."

“Don't give me a reason to, Master." The Doctor doesn't seem particularly put out by the property damage. He'd probably muster some outrage if the Master managed to be especially callous about those so-precious Earth artifacts. 

"I'm not your mechanic." 

"I can fix my own Tardis," the Doctor claims. 

The Master laughs. "No. Good job saving the universe, though."

The Doctor blinks. "They were poachers. Stealing ferns." Of course they were.

"From me, Doctor. Not many ways to make the entire universe shut up all at once, I don't think."

"No," the Doctor says. "I suppose not." 

He gives the Doctor a hard look. He did start off by saying it was no longer necessary to destroy the universe. Didn't he? There's no need for the Doctor to get squeamish, even if it never occurred to him. Something to poke at, next time he gets bored. He shrugs, as though he hasn't noticed. "Where are you parked?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> In my headcanon, the Master somehow had the opportunity to consult on the design of the Pandorica, in the year before the Year That Never Was. He certainly would have put in a way to get out, just in case.


End file.
